


that one regret is you

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Magic, Unsafe Sex, Witches, spencer smith as a mountain man hobo wizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:03:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4180851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a witch living way out in the woods (that’s Spencer) and there’s someone running blindly through said woods (that’s Brendon) and that’s about where the similarity to a fairytale ends (there’s a cauldron but Spencer only uses it to make soup so Brendon’s pretty sure it doesn’t count)</p>
            </blockquote>





	that one regret is you

**Author's Note:**

> whoops. shoutout to Molly for betaing this

Brendon can’t hear the shouting anymore.

Nothing is audible, not even off in the distance, not even when he pauses for a moment to lean his weight against a tree and does his best to listen through his panting breathing. Despite the silence he drags himself back to his wavering feet and keeps running. They had been fast, the men chasing him, and he wasn’t all that much faster.

Brendon isn’t taking chances. He keeps running, ignoring his aching feet and the tearing stitch in his side. He can taste blood but whatever. He isn’t mortally wounded. Just out of shape. Probably. He isn’t feeling much that isn’t blinding fear.

The pain in his side and the nasty blisters forming on his feet are better than what would happen if he got caught.

He’s not sure how far he runs, or for how long. Ages, it feels like, years and years of jogging and sprinting through the nighttime woods, stumbling over roots and rocks, scraping knees and palms every time he goes down and struggling back to his feet to run some more. It’s probably more like an hour, maybe two. He thinks he’s gone a few miles, though. Far enough to make it unlikely that anyone would find him.

He trips a final time and rolls, down a little embankment into what seems to be cool grass.

His body feels like it’s on fire. There’s pain everywhere, sharp in his ribs and his feet and his parched throat. The longer he lays there the more he becomes aware of it, of his muscles seizing and clenching agonizingly. He thrashes weakly in the grass.

Someone is making a thin, pathetic whining noise nearby. Brendon realizes dully that it’s himself making it but can’t really stop. It’s all he can do to curl into a tight little ball and cry as quietly as he can.

-o-

Awareness swims into focus slowly.

Thinking is so hard, Brendon’s fuzzy and so _tired_ and he’s aware, in a vague dreamy way, of a tidal wave of pain waiting just outside the soft dark bubble of unconsciousness. He’s warm, too, warm and comfortable and there’s someone humming tunelessly somewhere off to his side.

He tries to move and the pain spills in a little bit, just a sharp ache that forces a tiny pained noise from him.

The humming cuts off, replaced by the sound of someone moving closer to him. Nebulously he becomes aware of someone big and warm leaning over him, and the sensation of a hand pressing gently to his forehead. It’s gone a moment later, and there’s more rustling.

“Go back to sleep,” he thinks he hears someone murmur quietly, and he slips back into the quiet dark gratefully.

-o-

Brendon jolts awake in an unfamiliar room and takes a wild swing at the man leaning over him.

The man dodges easily and jumps back, shouting in shock. Brendon may shout a little too, he’s not sure, he’s too busy thrashing around in the blanket he’d been wrapped in and lunging for the first exit he sees.

He’s in his underwear, he realizes halfway to the door, but he’s been kidnapped by someone with a beard and he doesn’t know where he is so he’s probably lucky not to be _naked_. He’ll find something to wear when he isn’t in some crazy hermit kidnapper’s cabin, clothes aren’t his first priority.

He makes it to the door and promptly bounces off a wall of sparkly yellow air to land ass-first on the hard birch floorboards.

“What the fuck,” his kidnapper says, “you tried to punch me.”

He sounds ridiculously affronted for a kidnapper. Brendon thrashes around again – his muscles ache like a bitch, and he feels a little bit weak and noodly when he stops to take inventory – to face him.

His kidnapper is tall, and broad, and the beard isn’t quite as bushy as it had looked when it’d been the primary thing looming in Brendon’s initial impression upon waking up. He’s clean. Doesn’t look like he spends too much time lounging in his own filth. He’s glaring pretty impressively too, and-

There’s yellow magic sparking around his outstretched hand, spitting from his fingertips and crawling across his palm.

“You’re a wizard,” Brendon says dumbly.

The man frowns.

“I thought you were a kidnapper,” Brendon continues, proving that he can in fact make any given situation ten times worse just by opening his dumbass mouth. He snaps said mouth shut and blinks mutely at the man, who is blinking back with something that’s possibly confusion. Hard to tell under the scruff.

“Those aren’t… mutually exclusive,” the man replies at last, sounding a little bewildered. “I mean, I’m not. A kidnapper. I mean.”

His voice, Brendon decides, is rusty but un-creepy. He’s actually not creepy at all, when Brendon’s not mostly asleep and he’s not looming. His frown isn’t promising, though.

“You’re a wizard,” Brendon repeats dumbly. The sparks around the man’s hand are dying but they’re not _gone_ and he can’t stop his eyes from gravitating back to them.

He’s never seen anything like it before. He’s heard of it, everyone in his community has, in the scary stories passed around in the backs of pews and the whispered legends late at night. But he’d never seen it.

“I am not,” the man growls. Brendon’s eyes snap back up from his sparking fingertips to meet his eyes. They’re blue and angry.

“You did magic,” Brendon says. He’s aware he sounds like an idiot, thanks, but he’s in his underwear flat on his ass on the floor and he’d woken up less than two minutes previous, and he thinks he’s allowed a bit of leeway in that situation.

The man’s frown doesn’t recede. In fact, he manages to look even more offended.

“Not all people who do magic are wizards, and anyway wizards are dicks,” the man says grumpily.

“Right,” Brendon says diplomatically. The man examines him through baleful, squinted eyes.

“Now that you’re apparently awake enough to talk,” he says. “How did you find your way here? You shouldn’t have been able to get in, I’ve got this place balls-deep in wards and you don’t _feel_ very magic.”

He is, Brendon thinks, being unnecessarily suspicious.

“I wasn’t exactly _looking_ for this place,” he responds nastily. “I just happened to collapse from exhaustion in your front yard I guess, my _apologies_. I don’t even know where the fuck here is.”

The man squints at him for what feels like a week longer. Brendon wishes he weren’t quite so intimidating but his eyes are very, very blue and the memory of the sparking, spitting magic is still very, very vivid. He does his best not to look cowed and stare back just as coolly.

The man huffs a grumpy sigh and scrubs at his face with a hand.

“Fine. Sorry,” he says. He doesn’t sound very sorry, Brendon thinks. “I don’t get many people this way.”

“I forgive you,” Brendon says magnanimously. He also graciously ignores the man’s disdainful snort. “My name’s Brendon. What’s yours?”

The man eyes him for another rude length of time. Brendon starting to actually believe the excuse that he doesn’t get much company; there’s a certain mountain-man quality to the scruff on his face and total lack of courtesy.

“Spencer Smith,” he’s told at last. “Your clothes are over in the corner.”

Spencer proceeds to stand up and walk out the door without a backwards glance, leaving Brendon sitting pathetically on the floor.

He blinks at the door as it slams shut behind Spencer.

“What the fuck was that,” Brendon says to the walls. They don’t respond.

-o-

Spencer comes back inside what is actually like _a million hours later_ , carrying a pile of logs under one arm with apparently zero effort. Brendon is incredibly jealous.

He catches sight of Brendon and does a double take. He also drops all the logs on his foot like a total smooth customer and has to hop in place for a moment, clutching at his foot and swearing loudly. Brendon is a little less jealous.

“Smooth,” he comments, smirking when Spencer growls wordlessly and flips him off.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Spencer demands when he’s cursed at his foot to his satisfaction. Brendon frowns at him.

“Cleaning,” he offers after a beat. “I got bored.”

He proffers the rag he’d spent nearly half an hour searching the whole cabin for. It’s covered in dust and other, less pleasant things. Spencer hadn’t been a very _clean_ hermit-magician, apparently. Or at least, had been here a very long time and hadn’t been much disposed to deep cleaning. What Brendon had seen while hobbling his way around the room tidying up had been absolutely appalling. 

“…I can see that,” Spencer says slowly. For once he doesn’t look homicidally angry. More confused than anything. It does wonders for his face. “I… Why?”

“Your place is fucking gross, man,” Brendon says and watches the confusion on Spencer’s face slip back into homicidal anger. Right then.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be that isn’t here?” Spencer demands, tone disparaging.

Ah.

Brendon winces and shrugs uncomfortably.

“I don’t really have anyplace to like, _go_ ,” he says slowly.

“So go back where you came from,” Spencer says belligerently. He is being, Brendon feels, purposefully obtuse.

“It’s, um, it’s a long story,” he says awkwardly. “But I’m not exactly welcome, back where I came from. I was trying to go west, but I had to leave pretty quickly and, well. Here I am.”

Spencer cocks his head a little and remains quiet. Brendon doesn’t know him well enough to make sense of his expression yet and the silence rapidly gets incredibly awkward. He just really, _really_ doesn’t want to talk about the exact reason why he’s no longer welcome, back home.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he says at last. His voice doesn’t come out with the cheerful indifference he means it to and he hastens to paste on a wide smile. “If that’s alright with you.”

Spencer pauses for a long, long moment. He’s examining Brendon narrowly, blue eyes back to that icy coolness that hadn’t felt so good the first time it had been trained on him. It doesn’t feel much better the second time around.

“There’s a caravan that comes by here every month or so,” he says at last. It’s not unfriendly. By Spencer’s standards, downright pleasant. “You missed them by a while but they’ll be back in a week or so. You can stay here until then, they’re friends. They’ll take you west.”

 _You have friends?_ Brendon barely stops himself from asking. Instead he bobs a nod with his friendliest smile.

“Thank you,” he says, because he has manners. “I can do chores if you’ve got any, I don’t want to be deadweight.”

“Just, please stop cleaning my house,” Spencer says wryly. “I just got it to the right level of absolute filth.”

Brendon gapes. That had almost sounded like a sense of humor.

Spencer bursts into a snicker. It comes out rusty and it lights up his face and, shit, _fuck_.

Brendon is, he realizes, absolutely fucked.

-o-

Brendon spends three days not quite locked inside the cabin – he’s pretty sure there’s not even a lock on the door, apparently Spencer is either powerful enough or stupid enough not to care – but feeling distinctly unwelcome to wander around outside. He doesn’t feel particularly welcome inside the cabin either but at least Spencer spends most of his time outside, doing mountain-man-magician things.

He’s nice enough, he’s given Brendon a pallet he’d pulled out of some storage space and he feeds him regularly, but he’s just. He’s very tall and he doesn’t talk a lot and maybe Brendon is a little intimidated, is all.

Three days of boredom and cleaning later Brendon looks around the sparkling clean room and realizes another hour spent scouring the gaps between the wood boards of the floor would result in a homicidal break from reality.

Which wouldn’t work probably, not against Spencer. It would probably just result in Brendon embarrassing himself.

The sun is shining when he hesitantly opens the door he thinks is the back one. The air smells clean, of damp earth and growing things and sunshine. There’s a little yard full of flowers and growing green things Brendon vaguely recognizes as herbs and a split-rail fence that looks amateur but sturdy. It’s all kinds of disgustingly quaint and picturesque. Brendon adores it instantly.

Spencer is nowhere to be seen.

Brendon steps out onto the tiny little porch, barely three halved logs piled haphazardly together. The sun is warm on his face and he hauls in a deep breath, grinning broadly, before stepping out into the yard to explore.

The yard extends halfway around the house on either side, the fence connecting to the wall of the cabin and closing the area in neatly. There’s a little gate, latched with a loop of rough rope, and beyond the fence the forest encroaching with friendly, leafy fingers. He can’t make out the wards Spencer had mentioned and decides they’re probably farther out into the forest. It’s all so painfully charming Brendon almost wants to dance just for the hell of it but, well.

Then he’d probably sing, and that’d been what had gotten him into the whole mess in the first place. So maybe no dancing, just yet.

Brendon goes back to the main yard and hesitates, hovering over the little patches of green herbs. They’re haphazard but obviously organized by some system he doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t _quite_ trust himself to weed without accidentally pulling up something important. Likewise the litter of dead leaves and little sticks in the dirt and grass. He wouldn’t want to mess up some important magical concern.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asks and Brendon shrieks, jumping about ten feet into the air and whirling to face him.

Spencer’s standing by the door, leaning against the wall and watching him with arms crossed over his chest. He raises an exceedingly judgmental eyebrow at Brendon’s antics.

“Exploring,” Brendon says coldly when he gets his breath back.

Spencer’s other eyebrow raises and a little smile quirks the corner of his mouth before his face shuts down again. He’d looked almost friendly, for about half a second. Brendon wishes the smile would come back.

“I wondered when you’d get tired of cleaning,” he says.

“You could have given me something else to do,” Brendon snaps, putting his hands on his hips. Spencer shrugs.

“Cleanest the cabin’s been since I got here,” he says easily.

“I noticed,” Brendon mutters. The little smile crosses Spencer’s face again and this time it stays. Brendon is reminded again, uncomfortably, that he looks good like that. Handsome and friendly. “Your place was fucking filthy.”

“Not anymore,” Spencer says, and his grin takes a turn for the shit-eating. “But I take your point.”

“Have anything else I can do?” Brendon asks mournfully. Spencer’s smile slides away but his face is still alive somehow, some good humor dancing in the blue of his eyes.

“How do you like weeding?” he asks.

-o-

Brendon does _not_ like weeding, it turns out.

On the second day of loud complaining about the sun and the spiny weeds Spencer had offered to let him go back to cleaning the cabin or, if he preferred, sitting by the fireplace and staring at the walls and slowly going insane. Brendon told him exactly where he could shove that idea and redoubled his efforts at digging out the obnoxiously tenacious taproot of a particularly spiny weed.

Spencer had laughed at him. He did that a more and more, a wicked sense of humor hiding just under the surface of what Brendon is beginning to realize is more awkward discomfort with company than actual unfriendliness.

He’s getting better at it though, smiling more, actually starting conversations that more often than not ended amicably instead of in shouting matches or awkward, freezing silences. Even when Brendon spends a whole afternoon carefully pulling up every parsley plant Spencer owns instead of weeding.

Spencer had taken one look at that particular clusterfuck and bent double at the waist, laughing so hard Brendon had thought he’d fall over.

Brendon had been so tempted to push him but decided, in interest of his continued good health, to wait until they knew each other better.

It’s a good few days. He’s happy, he realizes when he tucks himself into the little pallet in the corner Spencer had let him use. It’s not a feeling he’s had much occasional to have, lately, and he falls asleep with a smile on his face that refuses to go away.

He misses home, but less when he’s going to bed totally exhausted and smelling of sunshine and dirt. Spencer’s breathing – and snoring – just across the room, that helps too.

-o-

“-I’m just saying, any dickhead should be able to tell the difference between fennel and a carrot plant without pulling it out of the ground.”

“Fuck you, then, I guess I’m just a very special case. Sorry for pulling up _one fennel plant_ , fucking bill me.”

Spencer rears back and puts his hands on his hips. He’s raising his judgmental eyebrow, the one Brendon is learning to hate because it only comes out when Brendon does something especially idiotic and, for example, pulls up all Spencer’s parsley. Or mixes up fennel and carrot plants.

Brendon puts his own hands on his hips and glares right back. He’s not going to be cowed.

“I’m not impressed with your little, ‘oh I’m a mountain-man hermit magician, normal human manners don’t apply to me, I have license to be a total butthole for no reason’ shtick, okay?” Brendon tells him.

Spencer’s expression shifts into blatant confusion for a moment.

“I’m not a magician,” he says, sounding ridiculously affronted. “What the fuck.”

Brendon frowns at him. He’s being difficult. Also, way to find the most relevant part of his diatribe.

“You do magic, and you apparently have some sort of grudge against wizards so I assumed you weren’t one,” he says, annoyed. “Ipso ergo, or whatever.”

“I’m a witch, you ass,” Spencer says, and Brendon bursts out laughing.

Spencer gapes at him until Brendon has to bend over double, clutching his sides.

It takes him a long minute to regain coherency. He’d pictured Spencer as a witch, was what had happened. The stupid stereotype that his priest had always tried to scare the little kids with, all long black robes and tiny battered cauldrons and withered, rotting skin. A little pointy black hat had always figured prominently.

Not at all similar to the tall, hale Spencer Smith standing and squinting at him disbelievingly.

“You,” he gasps out between gales of laughter. “You, in a. Fucking, wearing. Little pointy hat.” He mimes wearing the pointy little hat in question.

Spencer stares at him for a split second and then picks a tomato off the vine next to him and pegs Brendon square in the face with it.

It’s sticky and warm and dribbling tomato juice through his hair and Brendon’s laughter stops abruptly. He stares at Spencer. Spencer stares back.

Brendon tackles him into the dirt and they go rolling across the ground, Brendon doing his level best to shake the slimy tomato guts into Spencer’s face, Spencer trying to ward him off with poorly aimed elbows. They’re both nearly crying with laughter and it makes something happy and bright go off like a sparkler under Brendon’s ribcage.

They stay tangled together far longer than is strictly polite by most standards. Brendon writes it off as more of Spencer’s shitty hermit manners and just enjoys the proximity.

-o-

“So you’re a witch,” Brendon observes that evening.

They’re sitting by the fire. It’s dark out and Spencer has some kind of mending in his lap, doing something clever with a flashing steel needle and a pair of torn leggings. Brendon has a pile of herbs he’s carefully laying out and crumbling into marked glass jars.

Spencer shrugs and keeps his eyes on his mending.

“Yep,” he says, and doesn’t continue. Brendon huffs, annoyed.

“What does a witch _do_?” he asks, shredding a leaf particularly hard. Spencer’s quiet for a long moment, needle pausing in its rhythmic motion.

“Depends on the kind of witch,” he says at last, motion resuming. “Healing, hexes, growing things, everyone’s got a specialty. It’s usually something to do with living things. That’s where most witchery gets its power. Didn’t you learn all this wherever you’re from? It’s pretty basic shit.”

Brendon can’t answer for a while. It takes him a long moment to even get his hands working and when he finally flexes them he’s crumpled the basil he’d been holding into a sweaty mess. He brushes the sticky remains off on the hearth without looking at Spencer.

“My uh, hometown. Didn’t go in much for magic of any kind,” he says to the fire.

“Huh,” Spencer says. The sound of needle pulling through cloth doesn’t falter and he doesn’t continue. Brendon’s ridiculously grateful.

“So what’s your specialty?” he asks, forcing his biggest grin. Spencer raises an eyebrow at it and doesn’t comment.

“Hexes,” he deadpans, and grins when Brendon snorts at him disbelievingly. “Wards mostly, a little herbcraft. Protection magics.”

“That’s amazing,” Brendon tells him honestly. Spencer ducks his head and Brendon’s about ninety percent sure Spencer is actually _blushing_. He stares, delighted, his previous bad memories slipping back to the dark corner of his head he usually consigns them too. He wants to commit this to memory forever and ever. Spencer Smith _blushing_.

-o-

It’s getting harder to not pay special attention to those moments when Spencer does something especially manly and rugged.

Like this exact moment when he’s ferrying stacks of split firewood from the stump he’d split them on to the little shed apparently specially built for them. He’d been wearing a shirt for the actual log splitting, at least, thank god for small mercies. But Brendon isn’t so lucky, because Spencer had apparently decided to hell with modesty and stripped his shirt for the carrying work.

Shirtless is a _really good look_ for Spencer Smith.

Brendon realizes he’d been staring and quickly ducks back to what he’d been doing before. Shelling peas on the stoop. Not particularly mentally strenuous but-

Brendon glances over again. Spencer’s bent over, arranging another bundle of wood. Brendon feels himself go bright red and hastily grabs another handful of pea-pods.

It’s not particularly out of the blue – Brendon considers himself a bit of a free spirit and always has, even before… everything else. But it hadn’t been particularly encouraged by his family either and he isn’t sure how the rest of the world, and Spencer in particular, would feel about it.

Best to keep it to himself, he decides.

“You started that bowl an hour ago,” Spencer observes from a foot away. Brendon nearly upends the bowl of peas into the dirt. It’s only his superior and excellent reflexes, and a hasty hand from Spencer, that stops it.

“You distracted me,” Brendon retorts without thinking, and then promptly considers punching himself repeatedly in the face because _honestly_.

“I… distracted you,” Spencer says slowly.

“Yeah,” Brendon replies, wondering desperately if he can brazen his way out of this. “By just like. Chopping wood. And stuff.”

Apparently he can’t. Awesome.

Spencer stares at him. Brendon stares back and does his absolute damnedest not to let his face twitch. It’s a standoff for several moments, until the bowl tips out of Brendon’s lap and spills across the floor.

“Goddamnit Brendon!” Spencer yells. Brendon is shouting wordlessly too, with shock. In the ensuing scramble to pick up the spilled peas his little slip-up is apparently completely forgotten.

Brendon hadn’t done it on purpose but he congratulates himself all the same.

-o-

Brendon fucks everything up for himself forever, two days later.

It was nice while it lasted, he thinks to himself wistfully, watching Spencer stare around the room at all the birds and small mammals. They’re flipping the fuck out, dashing for the holes they’d found their way in through, rattling against windows and the door that’s slowly swinging closed behind Spencer.

The last bird flutters out as the door thumps shut. The last rat rattles through its hole. They’re alone in the room.

He’d known he shouldn’t sing. Singing is what had gotten him _into_ this mess, the inability to keep his voice to himself, to keep his… his _thing_ in check. He’d known it so well but everything had been so good lately and he’d forgotten.

He’d been singing a song his mom had taught him, is the worst part. He’d been sweeping up the ashes on the hearth and he’d started humming, because humming is still more or less safe. And the words had been in his head because he knew the song so well, and then. He hadn’t realized. But he’d been singing.

He’d realized when Spencer had thrown open the door and stepped inside and every animal that _always fucking showed up when Brendon sang_ had promptly lost their shit. He’d been through it before, after all. At least his mom isn’t here this time.

“What,” Spencer says slowly, “the fuck.”

Brendon’s voice sticks in his throat for a second.

“Sorry,” he croaks out past the obstruction in his throat. It hurts like he’d swallowed a rock.

“Sorry,” Spencer repeats. Brendon can’t figure out the tone of his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he tries again. He has to swallow to be able to get the words out.

“You can do magic,” Spencer says, blinking at him, and he sounds so shocked and blank.

“I,” Brendon feels himself bouncing a little, fear and nerves overflowing in anxious tidal waves through his body, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Spencer says blankly, and then he blinks and shakes himself, face coming alive with confusion. “Wait, why are you sorry?”

“Magic,” Brendon says, and then throws his hand out vaguely because he can’t _articulate_ right now. “I can, I didn’t tell you, this is. It’s not right.”

“Brendon I can literally do magic,” Spencer says, and he’s normal Spencer, exasperated with Brendon but still quirking a smile, somehow still okay with him. “I’ve literally done it in front of you. Why are you sorry?”

Brendon gets that, he does. He still can’t breathe. He can’t think, puts his face in his head so he doesn’t have to meet Spencer’s confused eyes.

“I don’t know,” Brendon mumbles into his hands.

He doesn’t know how to say that it’s alright if it’s _Spencer_ , who’s so sure of himself all the time and does magic like it isn’t anything but another set of skills. Who’s good with wards, so good he leaves his door unlatched like a dickhead nine times out of ten. Who’s a witch, a proper witch with all the herbs and a little cauldron, even if all he makes in it is soup and he doesn’t have the hat.

Brendon’s different. Brendon’s _different_ , had always _been_ different and the magic hadn’t really been anything but the last straw. Been something bigger and worse than the little domestic charms and minor illusions the community had been willing to let slide if the caster was pious enough. He hadn’t been nearly so useful, so uncontrollable that his parents hadn’t been able to hide it and his priest hadn’t been able to tame it and in the end…

He hadn’t been welcome, after that little fact had come out.

Spencer’s arms come around him unexpectedly. Brendon jolts in shock and his head comes up out of his hands.

Spencer’s warm and he smells like garden. Fertile earth and sunshine and a little tiny bit like clean sweat. He’s holding Brendon really carefully, like he thinks Brendon’s fragile, which Brendon absolutely will not stand for.

He throws his arms around Spencer and clings as tight as he can. Spencer responds by tightening his grip until his ribs ache a little. He just holds on tighter, burying his nose in Spencer’s shoulder. It smells good, comforting, right.

“You’re okay,” Spencer says at last, pulling back just enough for Brendon to miss the closeness. “What you do, I’ve never seen anything like it before, it’s amazing.”

Brendon laughs a wet, shaky laugh that’s nowhere near as carefree as he means it to sound.

“Yeah, I’m special,” he says. It comes out bitter, fuck. He’s not controlling himself very well. “A special kind of freak.”

Spencer’s palm touches his cheek and he meets Spencer’s eyes at last. They’re blue and bright and pissed off and it takes him a long moment to realize that Spencer isn’t angry at _him_. There’s a little creaking noise from the floor near their feet. Spencer’s hand on his cheek keeps him in place when he tries to look down.

“You’re not a freak,” Spencer snaps. “Who told you so.”

Brendon doesn’t answer for a moment, until the creaking coming from the floorboards gets noticeable again. He really does want to look down to see what it is, but Spencer’s brilliant eyes are too arresting.

“…my priest,” he says at last, defiant. “My family. My community didn’t… go in much. For magic. Not the stuff that wasn’t controllable.”

“Fuck them,” Spencer says fiercely, and the floor starts to actually shift under their feet a little bit. “There’s nothing wrong with your magic.”

“I can’t control it,” Brendon says, the words coming out acid. That’d been what had done it. If he’d only been able to keep it from happening, he’d be home. With his mom. His family. _Home_. “It just happens and I can’t control it.”

“And they what, blamed you for it? With no formal training?” Spencer demands. When Brendon hesitantly nods he sneers. “Of course you couldn’t, what the fuck. As if a single person with more than a drop of magic was ever able to deal with it without training-,”

“Spencer,” Brendon interrupts.

“What?” Spencer snaps, and Brendon looks pointedly down at the ground. Spencer follows his gaze down.

“Ah,” he says abruptly a beat later.

“Yeah,” Brendon says, the dryness of his tone ruined by the little quaver to it he can’t seem to get rid of.

The birch floorboards under their feet are warped and sprouting little green rootlets, little leaves and twigs. They’re tilted towards Spencer like he’s the sun and abruptly Brendon remembers what Spencer had said about his specialty. A little herbcraft, his ass.

“…oops,” Spencer says ruefully. “I’m gonna have to fix those floorboards.”

Brendon bursts out laughing, the kind of laughing that’s more relief than anything.

Spencer doesn’t step away. He keeps his hand on Brendon’s arm and watches him with warm eyes for several long moments. His expression is still a little stormy but his eyes are nothing but soft.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he says when the laughter has died down. Brendon has to look down at the sprouting floorboards instead of meeting his eyes. “Brendon, there isn’t. I’d know.”

“Right,” Brendon says even though he doesn’t really believe him. He toes at the little rootlets, watching the way they shift, just a little too much to strictly be just his foot doing it.

Spencer’s warm, rough fingers slip under his chin and pull his head up to meet Spencer’s eyes. They’re softer than ever, than Brendon’s ever seen them, and warm too. Something to get lost in.

Spencer kisses him gently, the first time. It's soft, his mouth tender on Brendon's, just the barest pressure of wet tongue to Brendon's lower lip before he's pulling back suddenly.

“Is this, I mean,” Spencer stumbles over the words, flushing bright red and expression worried. “Are you alright with this?”

“Spencer?” Brendon asks. His voice is shaking, but not with anger or sadness or anything bad. Not at all.

“Yeah?” Spencer says breathlessly.

“Shut up and make out with me,” Brendon says. Spencer shuts up and does.

It’s less chaste, insistent pressure and the long, lazy swipe of tongue that has Brendon gasping. He’d had kisses before, and more even – simple, sweet with the priest’s pretty daughter, hurried but no less sweet with the son of his family’s neighbor. It feels like more now, now with all the time in the world and so much want pressing behind it.

He pushes back into it, opens his mouth and kisses back as hard as he can.

Spencer’s hands slip under his shirt, splay rough fingers across his hips. It’s enough to have him hissing, bare skin and the frisson of cold air and Spencer’s little groan when his fingertips sneak under the waist of his pants, palming his hips and then slipping lower still to the dip of his spine. He wants Spencer to go farther, to grab his ass like he means it, but Spencer is apparently being a _gentleman_.

Well then.

He bucks a little bit, enough to press even closer until they’re chest to chest. He can feel Spencer’s erection against his hip, heavy and hot and he almost wants to detangle the hands from Spencer’s hair and collar to touch but it’s too good for him to stop.

Brendon nips his lower lip, a quick brush of teeth before sucking his lower lip in and biting down harder. Spencer’s moan is a revelation.

“Do you want to fuck me?” he breathes into the bare inch of space between them.

Spencer goes stiff under his hands and there’s a moment where Brendon thinks he’s about to get pushed onto the bed – it’s right there, and he wants, he _wants_ \- and then Spencer is pulling away, pushing him back and he feels so cold all of a sudden.

“Spencer,” he says because he can’t make his mouth work to say anything else.

“We, we shouldn’t,” Spencer says. He’s panting and when Brendon glances down he’s still so hard it’s tenting his pants obscenely.

“What?” he asks. His voice comes out a bare thread of sound. He can’t think.

“You’re leaving, with the caravan,” Spencer says.

Brendon remembers in a sickening rush. Yeah, this idyllic peace isn’t going to last. He’s leaving in a few days’ time, give or take a day.

Spencer won’t meet Brendon’s eyes, will barely look at him.

“Oh,” Brendon says uselessly. He can’t make words. His mouth is still tingling, his whole body is still on fire, he wants more than anything to reach out and reel Spencer back in. He wants Spencer’s hands back on him, wants to put his mouth on him, wants to put his mouth all _over_ him.

“Brendon,” Spencer says, sounding like the word is being torn out of him. “We can’t.”

“Fuck you,” Brendon says hoarsely, and stumbles for the door.

His erection is making it hard to walk and he wants to turn back around so badly. He wants to press himself to Spencer, push him against the bed in the corner and rub up against him until he comes. The door slams shut behind him, cutting off the sound of Spencer calling his name. He doesn’t come after him though and Brendon stumbles on into the trees.

He gets right to where the ward is, although he’s not entirely sure how he knows. He’s barely thinking, moving on instinct and the twin desire to be alone and to find a place it’s safe to finally get a hand on his aching cock. It’s a bare shimmer in the air and a buzzing presence in his periphery, he decides. It smells like Spencer, although Brendon doesn’t know if it’s the smell of Spencer’s magic or that the smell of growing things means Spencer to him.

He drops to sit against a tree and palms his cock through his pants. He’s still hard and it feels so good. The smell of Spencer, the faint cold prickle of pine needles against his skin. He presses harder, thrusting a little against his hand.

If he’d stayed. If he’d gotten up the balls or hadn’t opened his stupid mouth, pushed Spencer to the bed like he’d wanted to instead. Maybe sunk to his knees, taken him into his mouth. He wonders how big Spencer is. He has a decent idea, from when he’d been grinding against him, and Spencer certainly isn’t _small_ , but. It’s different when it’s in your mouth, Brendon knows. He thinks about the taste of skin and the weight of cock on his tongue and moans sharply.

Slipping his hand into his pants takes all of a moment and then he’s jolting as his hand wraps around his shaft. He doesn’t have long in him and anyway, he’s alone, he has no one to impress.

 _I’m jerking off in a forest_ , he thinks hysterically in the tiny portion of his head not entirely taken up by the desperate need to come.

He remembers Spencer’s moan in his ear and nearly comes right there. He has to wrap his fingers around the base of his dick to stop himself and he doesn’t quite manage to muffle the noise he makes. More than anything he wants to hear Spencer again, wants to cause his noises, wants to keep forcing noises from Spencer until he can’t stop. Fuck, _fuck_ , he just wants- everything. Everything.

He comes with a lightning strike of pleasure, arching his spine and forcing a loud cry from him. His vision whites out for a moment and when he comes back to himself he’s lying flat on his back in the forest floor. There’s come drying cold and sticky on his hand and in his pants.

“Fuck,” he mumbles to himself, feeling shame and anger percolating in his gut. He slams his fist to the ground, feeling his face go hot. “ _Fuck_!”

-o-

He comes back to the cabin later, when he’s calmed down and cleaned as much come as he can out of his pants.

Spencer’s sitting by the fire. He looks up when Brendon comes up, expression anxious. Brendon stares at him until he looks down at his knees, face red.

“I’m sorry-,” Spencer begins. It makes Brendon’s stomach turn over.

He’s a mistake, then. He’s just a mistake.

“I don’t wanna hear it,” he interrupts and settles on the far side of the hearth, as far as he can sit from Spencer without physically setting his ass in the fire. Spencer’s staring down at his knees still, face white except for the brilliant spots of red over his cheekbones. “Just… I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Okay,” Spencer mumbles. It sounds like he’s chewing on gravel to say it.

They sit in silence for a long, long time. Spencer stares at his knees. Brendon alternates between watching the fire and glancing across at him, catching him looking back down every time. It’s fucking stifling.

Brendon decides to say something and that Spencer owes him some truth, anyway. After all this, after having all his shit spread out in the open and then getting dumped on his ass, he’s owed a little bit of uncomfortable truth from Spencer, he thinks.

“This cabin,” Brendon says. Spencer jolts up like Brendon had screamed at him. “You’re nowhere close to anywhere, there’s nothing around. Why are you out here?”

The fire is flickering and low but even in the minimal light Brendon can make out the way Spencer’s face tightens. Suddenly his hands are the most fascinating thing in the room.

“It’s a long story,” he says, which is _such_ a cop-out. Brendon snorts.

“It’s not like we don’t have time,” he points out. Spencer shrugs uncomfortably and pauses for a long time.

“My friend that’s with the caravan, his name’s Ryan,” Spencer begins at last. Brendon bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from interrupting. “He was always… troubled. As a kid. Something… happened, and he couldn’t stay with his family anymore. So I ran away with him here.”

Spencer pauses, gesturing to the cabin around them.

“It was my teacher’s cabin, not that she lived here anymore by the time she got around to teaching me. She was too old. But she left it to me and it was… a place to go.” Spencer stops and shrugs. “Eventually Ryan left but… I couldn’t. Too many memories. Not enough reasons to leave.”

He looks so tired and alone in the firelight and for a long minute Brendon struggles with himself.

He gives in eventually and scoots across to press up against Spencer’s side. It’s not forgiveness – he’s pretty sure Spencer knows that – but it’s an acknowledgement maybe. Of the truth that Spencer had given him, if nothing else. For a beat Brendon can feel the uncertainty in Spencer’s body, the internal struggle between pushing him away and letting him stay. It goes on forever and lasts barely a second before Spencer’s arm comes down around him and pulls him close.

For once Brendon doesn’t feel the need to fidget and jig in place. He actually falls asleep there, from the combination of warm firelight and physical exhaustion and the persistent smell of growing things that Spencer seems to carry with him.

-o-

The next day is awkward – Brendon had woken tucked into his pallet, Spencer must have moved him – but Brendon doesn’t say anything and tries to act as normal as he can and after a while Spencer follows suit. It’s not like he has that long anyway, Brendon reminds himself bitterly, he should suck it up and deal.

He spends the day after that trying too hard to smile, Spencer not smiling at all, but they’re talking at least. He can deal with it. He can. He goes to bed telling himself that and absolutely doesn’t fall asleep listening to Spencer breathe, because that would be _creepy_.

About halfway through the day after that, they’re sitting around the hearth in mildly uncomfortable silence. Ostensibly Brendon is trying his hand at sewing and Spencer is doing something esoteric with a little knife and a length of stick. It’s kind of niggling at the edge of Brendon’s consciousness somehow and he’s pretty sure that means it’s magic but he hasn’t asked. Mostly out of fear that he’s _right_.

He just doesn’t have the emotional fortitude to deal with any more magical bullshit, not today. He’s about ready slam his face into a wall from all the tension, anyway. He keeps catching Spencer steal glances at him in the process of stealing his own.

Abruptly Spencer sits bolt upright, knife and stick toppling to the floor. Brendon jolts in surprise so hard he stabs himself with the needle and throws that to the floor too, cursing and sucking his thumb into his mouth.

“Motherfucker,” Spencer breathes, and then he’s on his feet and dashing for the door. Brendon stumbles upright, still tonguing the tender part of his thumb, and follows him out.

Spencer’s standing by the little dirt path, staring down it into the forest, shading his eyes with one hand. He barely acknowledges when Brendon comes up next to him, continues scanning the trees intently.

“Someone coming?” Brendon asks hesitantly.

“The caravan,” Spencer says simply, and points down the road.

There’s a pair of wagon, huge and covered with garishly patched canvas. The driver of the lead one is a blur of similarly garish color, overshadowed by a hat Brendon can only describe as ‘wizardy’. Brendon’s heart drops into his stomach and he instinctively hoists a grin on his face. God, this is sooner than he’d thought, he’d thought he’d have more _time_.

“Ryan Ross, get over here,” Spencer calls as the first wagon rattles up to the edge of the trees, gesturing broadly and smiling more widely than Brendon’s seen in days.

A boy – no, a man, just so skinny and dressed so gaudily he _looks_ young – jumps down from the first wagon and strides towards them. He’s pretty, a little fey in the cheekbones, definitely someone Brendon would have given more than a second glance. But right now he can’t look away from the happiness on Spencer’s face and it’s honestly so disgusting Brendon wants to punch himself.

The man ignores Brendon entirely, bypassing him in favor of initiating some sort of esoteric greeting ritual with Spencer comprising a few fraught seconds of staring and then a complicated and completely silent handshake with accompanying backslaps.

“Beautiful to watch, isn’t it?” someone says from next to Brendon and he jumps.

A man with an impressive amount of scruff and a friendly face smiles at him. He gestures at the pair, who are still somehow in the middle of the apparently complex choreography of their handshake.

“Can’t figure out how they remember it for the fucking life of me,” he continues. “The name’s Jon Walker, and that over there is Ryan Ross.” He then extends a hand to Brendon, a twinkle to his eyes that’s absolutely anything but trustworthy. Brendon narrows his eyes for a moment before taking it.

The man dips extravagantly to press his lips to the back of Brendon’s hand, confirming all his suspicions. He peeks up mischievously through his lashes, still bent over his hand. Laughingly Brendon presses a hand to his heart, faking a scandalized face.

“Jon Walker, are you trying to seduce me?” he demands jokingly. Jon laughs and bounces to his feet.

“Depends,” he teases, “is it working?”

“Maybe a little bit,” Brendon plays along, fluttering his eyelashes as outrageously as he can. Jon beams at him.

“Stop assaulting Brendon,” Spencer’s voice comes over Brendon’s shoulder, and Brendon looks back to find him- looming, actually. He’s staring at Jon with one of his lethal eyebrows raised, head cocked at the angle that promises retribution later.

“Brendon, is it?” Jon says, smiling, not in the least bit concerned with Spencer’s expression. “You’ve been holding out on us, Spence, if I’d known there were such pretty faces around these parts…”

“Jon Walker-,” Spencer begins threateningly, but Brendon interrupts.

“ _Spence_ ,” he says delightedly, and Spencer winces.

“It’s just a nickname-,” he attempts, and Brendon rolls right over him again.

“I’m never calling you _anything else ever again_ ,” he says, jigging in place. Spencer puts his head in his hands.

He can almost forget that he’s supposed to be sad. He can almost forget how bad things are between them. He can almost forget he’s about to leave, probably forever, probably to never see Spencer Smith ever again. He’s got a strictly limited number of opportunities to use his newfound weapon, and suddenly he doesn’t feel quite so happy.

He hoists his smile higher.

-o-

“So who are you,” Ryan asks later that evening, when the four of them are gathered around the hearth after dinner. It takes Brendon a full minute to realize he’s being addressed because he’s gotten so used to Ryan pretending he isn’t there. He isn’t even offended, really, he kind of got the impression Ryan is ignoring him because he doesn’t quite know what to make of him.

“Brendon,” he says with a winning smile.

“We were hoping you could take him with you when you head off,” Spencer puts in. “He has a pressing need to be… not here.”

A silent conversation is exchanged between Spencer and Ryan that ends on Ryan making an irritable face and drumming his knuckles on the floor grumpily.

“Well, did you have a destination in mind?” Jon asks Brendon good-naturedly. “Not that I wouldn’t adore having you along, of course. Gets cold some nights, we could double up, you and I.”

Brendon laughs, delighted, until he catches Spencer’s sour face out of the corner of his eye and stops abruptly.

“Do you even know anything about caravanning?” Ryan asks blandly, heedless of the sudden awkwardness, and raises an eyebrow when Brendon shrugs.

“I was thinking you could take him to Dallon,” Spencer offers. Ryan tosses his head and rolls his eyes. Brendon watches, wide-eyed, as Spencer _doesn’t_ punch him. He just rolls his eyes expressively back, sneering.

“I don’t like Weekes,” Ryan says.

“I like him,” Spencer retorts lazily, “And I don’t know why you don’t because he likes _you_ well enough.”

“He just has no business being that tall,” Ryan sniffs and crosses his arms. “How does a person even grow to that size? Witchcraft, no doubt.”

“You know very fucking well it isn’t witchcraft, George Ryan Ross, so there’s no need to act like a petty dickhead,” Spencer says. “You can admit it, you’re just jealous because his hair is prettier.”

Ryan looks aghast, whirling to throw a twig at Spencer, who ducks it easily and winks slyly in Brendon’s direction. It occurs to Brendon abruptly that Spencer’s _baiting_ Ryan, and pulling Brendon into the joke. It lights something warm in his chest and he’s smiling back at Spencer, wide and sincere.

“I see you’re feeling particularly clever today, Smith,” Ryan says disparagingly, trying to act like his cheeks aren’t staining bright red. “...His hair isn’t prettier than mine.”

“Of course not,” Spencer says agreeably, blinking innocently when Ryan glares at him.

“We all know you’re the prettiest, Ross,” Jon puts in, and heaves himself to his feet. “That’s me off, though, I haven’t gotten a full night’s sleep in weeks. Unless you want to come with me,” he directs to Brendon, who winks but waves him off. He goes with an exaggerated flourish and a blown kiss, the door thumping shut behind him.

Ryan’s started talking about something to do with Spencer’s herb garden and Spencer’s paying attention but his eyes are on Brendon and there’s no mistaking his expression for anything but jealousy. Normally that wouldn’t do anything but make Brendon laugh but this time he stares into the fire, feeling abrupt sourness gather in the pit of his stomach.

Spencer has no right to be jealous, Brendon reminds himself, even if Brendon wishes he did.

-o-

“So who’s Dallon?” Brendon asks the next morning. Spencer’s awake, barely, still wrapped in a blanket and blinking owlishly at the world. He’s softer like this than he’s been recently, like he hasn’t yet remembered that things are awkward between them.

“We apprenticed to the same coven,” Spencer grunts and then yawns wide enough to flash Brendon his back molars. It’s a mark of how fucked up Brendon is over him that it’s more endearing than disgusting. “He’d be able to teach you some shit, and I think you’d get along. He’d set you up in town.”

Brendon pictures Spencer as an awkward, stoic child, little flowers tucked into his hair and magic sparking from his chubby fingers, and nearly dies of the cuteness of the image.

“Thank you,” he says, and Spencer smiles at him sleepily. His eyes are almost shut, his scruff bristling and his hair a bird’s nest. Brendon wants to climb him like a tree, kiss him breathless, push them both back onto Spencer’s bed and spend the rest of the day there. Instead he ducks forward, snatching a fast hug and dancing away before Spencer can push him off awkwardly.

Spencer’s blushing a little bit and won’t meet his eyes. It’s worth it.

He’s pretty sure it’s worth it.

-o-

Apparently chores won’t wait just because Ryan and Jon are here so Brendon heads into the garden when Spencer gets coherent enough to be truly awkward. Ryan’s there but Ryan is also sitting under the sunflowers, eyes closed, apparently communing or something, so Brendon feels safe in ignoring him.

“Brendon,” Ryan’s voice interrupts his weeding, proving him wrong.

His tone of voice is one Brendon imagines kings probably used to say ‘peasant’. He desperately wants to laugh but the way Ryan’s staring at him narrowly when he wheels to face him promises possible physical violence so he decides silence is tactically advantageous. The sunflowers bobbing like massive yellow halos behind him don’t do enough to detract from the sharpness of his stare.

There’s a long silence of Ryan doing absolutely nothing but glaring at him.

“Yes,” Brendon hazards at last.

“You’re good for him,” Ryan proclaims, apparently apropos of nothing. Brendon stares at him for a bit. Blinks. Stares some more.

“I’m good for him,” he says slowly, because, what?

“He’s happier,” Ryan says, looking vaguely pained, and Brendon realizes they’re apparently talking about _Spencer_. “Stopped being quite so much of a…” he pauses for a long moment, waving his hand loosely in the air.

“Surly wizard hobo?” Brendon supplies without thinking.

Ryan bursts out laughing.

He looks so much nicer laughing, Brendon thinks, delighted. Pretty as he apparently always does, but also so much nicer. Like someone who would have gotten to be friends with Spencer, someone Jon would want around. Someone Brendon himself would want to be friends with.

“Surly wizard hobo,” Ryan gasps out, “Fuck, I hope you called him that to his face, holy shit.”

“Pretty much,” Brendon says, grinning. “He wasn’t very happy about it.”

“He’s got the worst fucking grudge against wizards,” Ryan snorts, sobering up. He’s still smiling a little bit though and there’s something in his eyes when he looks at Brendon that tells him he’s won his approval.

“Yeah, what’s that about?” Brendon asks. Ryan shrugs.

“He won’t tell us,” he says and grins slyly. “But I’ve got some theories…”

He doesn’t explain what he’d meant, about Brendon making Spencer happy, about Brendon being _good_ for him. Too busy telling Brendon story after embarrassing story about Spencer and Ryan’s collective childhood. But that’s okay, Brendon’s a smart enough person. He’s worked it out for himself.

-o-

The thing about Spencer apparently having feelings for him – not that he didn’t already know, none of this awkward, ugly bullshit would have happened if it weren’t so, but it’s different to have Ryan confirm it – is that it doesn’t change anything. After the initial moment or so spent staring into space and smiling vacantly, chest aglow and warm, the birds all but singing Spencer’s name from the trees, reality comes crashing back in.

Spencer is staying in his little witch-hobo cabin and Brendon is leaving.

That hasn’t changed. Spencer is still loading the caravans down with jars of dried herbs and other sad witch-hobo products, still avoiding meeting Brendon’s eyes or being alone in the same room as him. If anything it makes it worse. Knowing that Spencer is staying _despite_ his feelings means… well, it means they weren’t that important to him.

Brendon is starting to feel his cheeks ache with the effort of keeping his smile aloft.

They get through the day, somehow. It’s obvious they’re leaving soon, if not tomorrow then the day after. There’s only so much cargo that needs to be shifted back and forth, and Brendon’s getting the impression Ryan staying in one place is a rare thing at best.

“Spencer says you’re magic,” Jon says as they pile the last bundle of firewood into the back of the cart.

Brendon drops his end. Jon staggers a little and barely manages to heave the whole lot into place, cursing the whole time. Ryan’s not there, at least, nested in the cabin with Spencer talking about – something, Brendon doesn’t really care.

“He said that,” he says numbly. His head is spinning and he’s struggling between being grateful to Spencer for trying to help and absolutely fucking livid. He settles somewhere between the two.

“Well, he mostly said not to talk to you about it,” Jon amends, “And I figured that’s what he was trying to avoid us finding out about.” He stares at Brendon shrewdly, expression stripped of raunchy humor for once. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

“No,” Brendon says, tongue still numb.

“Huh,” is all Jon says, jumping back to the ground and straightening his clothes with deliberate attention. “Well, don’t be too pissed off at Spencer. He’s an idiot but he means well.”

“I’ll choose who I get mad at, thanks,” Brendon growls although he’s already starting to deflate. Damn his total inability to hold a grudge, honestly. Spencer needs to be yelled at.

Jon chooses not to say anything despite his amused glance.

“Ryan’s magic, too,” he says when he’s finally, painstakingly shaken his pants into the right state of disarray. It looks the same as its previous state of disarray to Brendon but he keeps quiet. It’s possible he just knows nothing about how fashion works.

“Is he?” he asks belatedly. He’s not really surprised, of Ryan and Spencer he’d have pegged Ryan as the magic one in a heartbeat.

“Not very, just a little,” Jon says and grins impishly. “He’ll kill me if he finds out I told you though, he likes to pretend he’s a grand mage when he thinks he can get away with it.”

Brendon acknowledges this to be a very Ryan thing to do, just from his limited experience.

Glancing around he realizes they’ve loaded all the piled-up cargo onto the wagons. There’s nothing else to do really, nothing to stop them from leaving tomorrow. Suddenly there’s sharp fear fluttering in his throat, anxiety at the future, dread of leaving. The sharp pain in his chest at the thought of Spencer.

“So what about you?” he asks, mostly out of desperation. He doesn’t want to go back to the cabin. He’s got the feeling that if he’s left alone with Spencer he’ll try some sort of fumbling attempt at a heartfelt goodbye, something that he doesn’t need to humiliate himself by trying. Doesn’t need to force on Spencer if Spencer doesn’t want it.

“Oh, little old me?” Jon grins, the familiar lecherous twinkle back in his eye. “I’m ordinary as they come, to be honest.”

“I don’t believe you,” Brendon decides, tone mostly teasing.

Jon spends most of an hour arguing persistently that he isn’t even the littlest bit magic, until it’s dark and Brendon knows he has to head back. He says his goodbyes with a smile that’s only mostly forced and walks back to the cabin reluctantly, as slowly as he can put one foot in front of the other.

He hears voices as he nears the door and he pauses thoughtlessly, listening.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Spence.” Ryan’s voice comes, fiercely bitchy.

There’s a thump and Brendon imagines Ryan stamping his foot a little to go along with his words. He snickers and slides closer to the crack in the door to hear better. He’s the fucking champ at eavesdropping, had his skills honed in more fraught territory than this. He wants to know what Spencer’s being a fucking idiot about.

“I can’t ask him to stay,” Spencer says, and abruptly Brendon’s smile slides off his face. Something sick flutters sharply against his ribcage.

“Like hell you can’t!”

“He deserves better.”

“Yes he does,” Ryan counters, sounding annoyed. “He deserves a fucking castle and a pretty princess gown and everything, I get it.”

“Fuck you,” Spencer says, laughing a little bit. He doesn’t actually sound all that amused.

“No, fuck _you_ ,” Ryan counters. “You tell me you’re okay with letting him leave but you’re absolutely fucking miserable, Spence.”

“He deserves better than a fucking hobo-cabin in the woods,” Spencer says irritably, “he deserves better than _me_.”

“You shut your fucking mouth, Spencer James Smith,” Ryan hisses. Brendon can’t think, can’t do anything but mouth _James_ to himself. He misses Spencer’s response, only tunes back in when the sound of something thumping against the wall gets his attention. It sounds kind of like a fist.

“So come _with us_ ,” Ryan yells a moment later, actually yells. It’s so loud Brendon startles and almost falls over. He manages to catch himself against the wall silently enough but it’s a close one.

“I can’t,” Spencer says, and it sounds choked.

“You’re scared,” Ryan continues ruthlessly. “So fucking what, we’re all scared. Jon and I managed to deal with it. Brendon’s terrified, you ever think of that? All on his own, probably never has been before, and you’re all but throwing him out the door.”

“He’ll be fine,” Spencer says, voice going cold, and Ryan grunts wordlessly in frustration.

The steps towards the door are rapid and Brendon barely has time to throw himself to his feet before the door is opening and Ryan is storming through. He catches sight of Brendon standing there just as the door slams shut again, cutting them off from the interior.

“I wasn’t,” Brendon begins, and then stops. It’s pretty fucking obvious what he’d been doing. Ryan snorts.

“He’s an idiot,” is all he says, and then he’s stalking on past Brendon towards the caravan wagons.

The room is warm when Brendon hesitantly pushes the door open and steps inside. Spencer’s standing by the fire, back to the door. He looks stiff, pissed off, all but vibrating in anger. He twitches when he hears the door shut.

“Fuck off, Ryan,” he snaps without turning around.

“Uh,” Brendon responds intelligently. Spencer whirls.

He’s red-faced and wide-eyed. Stares at Brendon like he’s never seen him before. Hands trembling fists at his side.

“I heard yelling,” Brendon says dumbly. It’s not a lie. A little stretch of the truth, maybe, but he absolutely does not want to let on to Spencer that he’d heard what had just happened.

“Ryan,” Spencer says, voice so thick with anger it’s more of a growl, “needs to keep his fucking nose out of my business.”

Brendon’s traitorous dick takes a decisive interest in the noise.

“Your business,” he says, tongue clumsy. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. All he knows is that he’s leaving tomorrow and Spencer isn’t and Spencer wants him but not enough to ask him to stay. Not enough for that.

Spencer brushes a clenched fist across his mouth. He looks about as sure of himself as Brendon does but he can’t seem to keep his eyes away. Brendon catches his breath and is abruptly angrier than he can ever remember being in his whole entire life.

“He was saying shit,” Spencer says, and he sounds absolutely wrecked. “Shit he knows nothing about.”

“About me,” Brendon fills in deliberately, and watches Spencer flinch with a secret flare of dark satisfaction.

“Fuck, Bren. How did you-,” Spencer begins, looking terrified.

“I’m not an idiot,” Brendon says. Spencer’s mouth shuts with a snap. “I know you were talking about me.”

He leaves out the part about him having listened in. It’s still not relevant.

“I, Brendon, I’m sorry?” Spencer tries, looking a little stunned, a little like Brendon had just slapped him.

“No, I get it, I do,” Brendon says viciously, bitterly happy at the way Spencer flinches when he speaks. “He what, wanted to know all about the stupid boy with his stupid magic? Did you tell him how I wanted to kiss you too? You tell Ryan all about _that_ part?”

He knows he’s making shit up but he can’t actually stop himself. It feels good to watch his words slice into Spencer, watch the shame and shock on his face. Feels like payback, and Brendon is disgusted with himself and he still can’t stop.

“It wasn’t like that, Brendon, you have to believe that, I would never say that about you,” Spencer says, sounds desperate. “That’s not for Ryan to know, it’s just between us-,”

“Because it was a mistake,” he fills in, acid-sour, and the words burn his mouth. “That’s all. You regretted it.”

“No, no, it was never that,” Spencer says urgently, and Brendon has to swallow to be able to speak.

“Then what?” he demands. He’s angry and fuck, he’s getting _turned on_ , what the fuck, and mostly he just wants to be closer to Spencer.

“I didn’t…” Spencer says, and takes a helpless step forwards. “I didn’t want… to have, to have you, and then never see you again. I couldn’t do that to myself. I want you too much to let you go, fuck, _Brendon_.”

Brendon tries to inhale and it doesn’t work, is more of a choked out noise than anything.

“I hate you,” he croaks, and his back hits the wall of the cabin. Spencer’s all he can see, all he can smell, filling up his senses with himself. Anger is still burning hot and bitter in his throat but arousal is just as strong. He wants to bite down on the skin of Spencer’s throat, wants to wreck him, wants to mess him up as badly as Brendon feels.

“I know,” Spencer says, and reaches out helplessly. Brendon’s hand comes up without thinking about it, fisting in Spencer’s shirt and pulling him in.

They’re so close Spencer’s knee is nudging between Brendon’s legs. So close if Brendon tilted his head up ever so slightly their mouths could slot together so perfectly. He remembers, abruptly, how soft and perfect and sweet kissing Spencer had been.

He doesn’t want that. Doesn’t want to ruin the memory, still sweet. He doesn’t tilt his head up, just stares up at Spencer and tightens his fist in Spencer’s shirt.

“Brendon,” Spencer says lowly. It rumbles in his chest and Brendon has to catch his breath. Against the pain of leaving. Against the sudden speed in his heart beat. Against the insistent, hot pulse of arousal at the way Spencer has him boxed in against the wall.

“Spencer,” he says, feeling his breath catch in his throat. Spencer’s eyes are so blue, and his pupils are huge and trained so close to Brendon.

“Can I?” Spencer asks. Brendon doesn’t answer, can’t answer, and Spencer ducks his head to mouth at the hollow just beneath his ear. It makes Brendon arch, biting off a quick moan.

“Please, Brendon,” Spencer mumbles in his ear. It sounds desperate.

“Yes,” Brendon breathes, and pushes back against Spencer’s shoulders.

Spencer goes easily, watches every move Brendon makes with wide eyes. He steps back, and back again, until he’s tumbling backwards onto the bed and staring up at Brendon where he’s standing in the v of his legs. He looks scared, and hopeful, and a million things Brendon can’t sort out in his head. It’s all tangled up.

“Can I,” Spencer says again, and his hands come up to hover around Brendon’s hips. He doesn’t continue, his mouth working and then stilling, still staring up at Brendon so helplessly.

Brendon puts his fingers to Spencer’s mouth, pressing roughly to his lips. They part and Brendon presses inside, into the hot wetness of Spencer’s mouth. It’s so fucking hot, he thinks dizzily, and he wants to fucking wreck him. He’s so hard it’s starting to hurt a little bit.

Spencer moans around his fingers. It sounds broken, desperate. He still hasn’t touched Brendon. His hands are back down in his lap, useless.

“What do you want?” Brendon asks softly. He’s not sure any of his emotions are anger, anymore. He just… _wants_ , wants Spencer desperately, wants to forget that there is any time but now and anything but them. Wants to mark Spencer so he can’t pretend this hadn’t happened. Just, wants _Spencer_.

Spencer mouths around Brendon’s fingers a moment longer and then pulls back until Brendon’s fingers are free.

“Let me suck you off,” he says breathlessly. Brendon swears and his hand jumps to massage his aching cock through his pants. He can’t think about anything at all but Spencer’s mouth on him and he wants it suddenly, blindingly badly.

“Yes,” he hisses, and Spencer’s hands land on his hips.

They’re large hands, Brendon notes distantly, and somehow he’d expect that to make him feel like Spencer’s the one in control. Not now, not when every one of Spencer’s movements are clumsy and desperate and uncertain. He’s the farthest thing from in control, not that Brendon’s all that much better.

He’s expecting Spencer to spin them, to put Brendon on the bed, but Spencer just nudges him forward and then slides off the bed and to his knees. He’s eye-level with Brendon’s cock and when he looks down he can see Spencer’s erection pressing obscenely against the material of his pants.

Spencer pauses for a moment, and then he breathes out and lean forwards and pulls Brendon’s pants down in one go.

His cock springs free with a feeling of pure relief and Spencer’s hand is there a second later. It’s uncoordinated, inexperienced, the best thing he’s ever felt until Spencer’s mouth is there and it’s even better.

He licks at first, quick and wet around the head and then down, wetting the shaft. His hand is moving too, off-rhythm and almost too much for Brendon to handle. It’s all he can do to lock his knees and then Spencer’s sucking the head of his cock into his mouth and tonguing him experimentally before taking him deeper. Brendon swears, swears again, tangles his hands in Spencer’s hair and does his best to hang on.

Spencer is obviously inexperienced but what he lacks in that he makes up for in sheer, desperate desire to please. It’s messy, wet, and after a minute he has to pull back to lick and breath. Brendon does his best to smooth his hand through Spencer’s hair but his words are _gone_ , it’s all he can do to pant Spencer’s name.

Spencer dives back down and takes Brendon even further, so far his mouth touches where his hand is moving just slightly at the base of Brendon’s dick. He builds rhythm so fast Brendon is left panting for breath and it takes him what feels like an eternity to crane down to see.

He doesn’t think he’s ever going to lose the image of Spencer bent over cock, bobbing obscenely, his hair bunched in Brendon’s fingers. The sounds, either, the slick wet noises and Spencer is _moaning_ , holy shit, the vibrations almost too much for him. It’s a little like he imagines a holy revelation would feel.

He touches his fingers to where Spencer’s mouth is stretched red and shiny-wet around the shaft of his cock and then he’s coming, head falling back, crying out shamelessly. Spencer pulls back somewhere mid-orgasm and when Brendon finally comes back enough to do more than lock his knees and tremble he looks down to find Spencer watching him.

He’s got come on his face, on his mouth and chin and a little bit on his beard and objectively it’s actually kind of silly looking. It’s the hottest fucking thing Brendon’s ever seen, after his _cock_ in Spencer’s _mouth_.

“Spencer,” he says dizzily. Spencer makes a wordless noise back and abruptly Brendon realizes he still hasn’t come. He stumbles back a little bit, Spencer’s hands falling away from him.

“Up, on the-,” he says, voice breaking, “bed, get on.”

Spencer must understand him, scrambling upright and falling gracelessly back onto the bed. Brendon follows him down, presses himself to Spencer chest to thigh. He’s hot, burningly hot, and trembling under him. He whines when Brendon rolls his hips experimentally, a wordless little noise that makes Brendon’s spent cock twitch despite itself.

“God, Spencer,” Brendon says uselessly, and rolls his hips again.

Spencer pants and doesn’t say a word.

“What do you want?” he asks, and touches his fingers to Spencer’s cheek. He’s bright red and it takes a long minute for his eyes to focus on him.

“I want, um,” he says slowly. His words sound like they’re a struggle. “Your mouth, I want that.”

Brendon’s wiggling down an instant later, hands reaching for Spencer’s waist. Spencer’s hand closing around his wrist brings him up short. He looks back up to find Spencer watching him with dark eyes, mouth working.

“Can you,” he begins, and then hisses and looks away. “Can I kiss you first, I mean, can I? Please?”

He sounds- he sounds like he thinks Brendon will say _no_. It takes all of a moment to realize that he hadn’t kissed Spencer at all, before now. Hadn’t had a chance, between the anger and then everything else, not wanting to ruin the memory of the kisses before. But he wants to, all of a sudden. Oh god, he wants to.

Spencer’s moans when Brendon presses the first kiss to his lips. It’s off-center, the aim all wrong, but a beat to adjust and they’re sliding together perfectly. It’s soft, like before. Like Brendon remembers, except he doesn’t remember it tasting quite like this. Belatedly he realizes he’s tasting himself in Spencer’s mouth and he groans raggedly, chasing the taste deeper.

“I want to blow you,” Brendon pulls back to tell him, and dives back in to swallow Spencer’s surprised moan in another kiss. The roll of Spencer’s hips against his ass is telling enough.

The motion has started to get uneven by the time Brendon breaks the kiss and slides down Spencer’s body to his tented erection. Spencer’s close, he can practically smell it in the air, and he hisses something halfway through a curse and a prayer when Brendon carefully lifts the material of his pants out of the way.

Spencer’s thick and fairly long and Brendon sucks him down with no finesse at all. He’s heavy on Brendon’s tongue, taste thick and salty and bitter and perfect. Above his head Spencer is blaspheming desperately, loudly, but his hands are gentle on Brendon’s hair.

He comes in two thrusts and floods Brendon’s mouth to the point that some spills out and down his chin. Apparently he doesn’t care because he drags Brendon up a moment later and kisses him roughly, tongue chasing his own taste into Brendon’s mouth.

The kissing slows, turns tender and sweet until they’re just breathing together, so close Brendon thinks he can still feel Spencer all over him.

He doesn’t want to give this up, not ever, not for the rest of his life, and suddenly he knows what the sweet, painful flutter in his chest is.

“I love you,” Brendon says with no preamble.

Spencer’s mouth opens and he tries to say something. It’s stumbling and doesn’t quite make it to coherency but the fear blooming in his eyes suddenly speaks enough.

“Shut up,” Brendon tells him kindly. Spencer shuts up. “It doesn’t really matter if you love me back-,” a lie, of course, but an important one, “I just need you to know. That I do. That I want you like that.”

“Brendon, I _can’t_ ,” Spencer says. He sounds like he’s in pain. Brendon nods and ignores the pain slicing into his own chest. It’s not really all that new. He’ll live through it, if Spencer truly doesn’t have it in him to love him back. It’ll hurt, but he’ll live.

“That’s alright,” he says and his voice is a little thick. “I tried.”

He tries to climb out of Spencer’s hold and Spencer’s hand closes around his wrist, pulling him back. He meets Spencer’s eyes again, startled by the opaque struggle in the blue of them.

“You don’t understand,” Spencer says at last, every word a fight. Brendon waits as patiently as he can, which isn’t very. “I. I can’t leave.”

“What do you mean?” Brendon asks slowly. Spencer looks down for a long moment.

“I think,” he says. “I think I could be in love with you.”

Brendon’s breathing catches and doesn’t start again and it’s totally, utterly silent in the tiny room.

“I want to leave with you,” Spencer says and looks back up. He’s so scared, Brendon realizes, he’s shaking. He can feel it telegraphed through Spencer’s whole body. “I just don’t know how.”

“Come with me,” Brendon says. What he wants more than anything. He puts all of his hope in his voice because he has to _try_. “Leave with us. Come with me.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything for a long moment and Brendon’s heart takes a long, sick slide into his stomach. He suddenly doesn’t feel so good.

“I…” Spencer says at last. “Just… Stay here tonight, Bren.”

He tugs on the Brendon’s sleeve gently, and when Brendon searches his face all he finds is fear and sadness and absolutely no give. Spencer isn’t going to come with him. Even after tonight – Brendon hadn’t thought that it would change his mind exactly but apparently there’d been some part of him that’d held out hope – he’s still going to stay.

Spencer tugs again, wordlessly. He’s watching Brendon’s face so closely.

Brendon closes his eyes and spends several long moments just breathing, until the pain in his chest has lessened and he’s not quite so close to crying.

“Okay,” he says at last. Wordlessly he wriggles out of his clothes and then crawls over to Spencer, tucking himself determinedly into his side. He’s going to have this, at least. Spencer owes him some fucking cuddles.

Spencer spends a moment arranging them so his face in pressed into Brendon’s hair, chest snug to Brendon’s back, arm looped over Brendon’s stomach and fingers hesitantly curling through his. Brendon tightens his hand around Spencer’s and closes his eyes.

He doesn’t think he’s going to sleep but he does, falls right asleep so rapidly he doesn’t even feel it happen.

-o-

He wakes up the next morning to find Spencer already awake and running his fingers through Brendon’s hair. He stops as soon as he notices Brendon’s awake and looks away, flushing.

“Morning,” he says softly. Brendon doesn’t say anything at all, just reaches up and tangles his fingers in Spencer’s long hair and pulls him down to kiss him.

Spencer goes easily. He tastes like morning breath and he smells sleepy and warm and like Brendon and himself all mixed up together. He kisses soft and sweet and his beard scratches a little bit. Brendon’s chest aches sharply and he lets go, rolling out of bed in the same motion.

“I’m gonna wash my face,” he says without looking at Spencer, and pulls his filthy pants off the floor and onto his body. Spencer doesn’t say anything as he leaves to go to their well.

The cold water wakes him up and he takes the opportunity to clean the rest of himself off as well. There’s sweat and spunk dried into his skin and as much as he doesn’t really mind smelling like Spencer he’s pretty sure Ryan and Jon don’t have quite the same feelings.

Spencer passes him in the doorway without a word, just a pause and the soft brush of fingertips to his elbow that Brendon ignores for his sanity. He busies himself with the hearth, a little loaf of bread and some carrots, until Spencer comes back in. Red-faced, he looks clean and a little damp and Brendon really wants to dirty him back up but he offers a carrot wordlessly instead. He doesn’t really know what else to do.

Spencer takes it and sits down a carefully measured space away. Brendon goes back to eating.

Jon throws the door open just as they’re finishing, swaggering in heedless of the thick silence they’re drowning in. Brendon turns to him gratefully.

“We’re leaving pretty much now,” he says with a grin and a beckon to Brendon. He tries to smile back and it’s probably literally only his considerable experience with smiling through everything and anything that makes the expression halfway believable.

“Give me a second and I’ll be right out,” he says and Jon salutes, sauntering back out with a wink.

“You could come with me,” he says a final time into the silence Jon leaves behind. Spencer doesn’t even look at him, staring at the little carrot top he’s turning over in his hands.

It’s wilting rapidly, Brendon notes, going brown and limp and slimy as Spencer turns it in his fingers.

“Spencer,” he says, and reaches out. Spencer looks up just in time for Brendon’s hand to tangle in his hair again, drag him forward for a last kiss. It’s biting and desperate and long, goes on forever and ever until they’re just panting, breathing each other’s air and brushing lips.

Brendon pulls away first. He has to, has to climb to his feet out from under Spencer, has to reach for his last bag and hoist it to his shoulder all alone.

“Okay then,” he says dully into the silence and steps out the door into the sunshine.

Ryan is waiting impatiently by the first wagon. He’s tapping his foot like an asshole and he’s got his arms crossed across his chest over his garish waistcoat and Brendon sort of expects to be chewed out for holding everyone up. He’s braced for it but Ryan takes one look at his face and deflates, arms falling to his sides and expression sad.

“I’m sorry,” he says after a moment.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Brendon says tiredly. Ryan makes a face and shifts uncomfortably.

“I tried to talk to him,” he says and Brendon palms his face. He feels _exhausted_.

“I really, really don’t wanna talk about it,” he says.

“He’s an idiot,” Ryan begins, expression pained, and is about to say more when his gaze shifts over his shoulder and his expression takes on an almost comical cast of surprise.

“Wait!” Spencer’s voice calls, and Brendon whirls so fast he almost trips and falls over.

Spencer’s standing by the fence, staring down at his feet and his face is bright red. He’s so flushed Brendon’s pretty sure he can feel the heat from where he’s standing – or maybe that’s just his happiness, swooping in his stomach, blooming in his chest like roses. Spencer’s not looking at him but he’s doing it in a way that makes it so obvious that it’s actual effort not to.

“So I heard you guys were heading west,” Spencer mumbles. He’s avoiding Ryan’s eyes. Probably because of the broad, shit-eating grin spreading across his face. Brendon can barely breathe, he feels like he’s got a balloon in his ribcage.

“We could be,” Ryan says smugly. He shoots Brendon a sharp warning glance when Brendon tries to bounce forward and he stills unwillingly. He just, he wants to hug Spencer like, a _lot_.

“Goddamnit, Ryan,” Spencer huffs, and rolls his eyes in a bitchy way totally at-odds with the tomato color his face is rapidly going. “Are you going to let me come with you or not?”

Ryan inspects his nails for a long moment, until Spencer makes a wordless growl of frustration and he breaks into a sweet little smile.

“’Course, Spence, you know you can,” he says, and Brendon breaks with a happy yell.

Spencer oofs when Brendon tackles him and they spend a long moment teetering in space, a grappling tangle of limbs and Spencer trying to stay upright and Brendon trying to hug him and kiss him and climb him like a tree all at once. Gravity wins out and they fall backwards into the grass. It’s sun-warm, and Spencer is hot and soft and alive under his hands.

He kisses him and laughs while he kisses him and Spencer catches his cheeks in his palms and kisses him back. He’s smiling so hard the kiss is more of a wet, clumsy brush of mouths and it’s the best thing Brendon’s ever done. He can’t wait to do this again and again and again, all the time, for the rest of _forever_.

“I love you, I love you,” he chants when he has the breath and space to do so.

“Love you too, fuck, Bren,” Spencer tells him back between kisses, and he laughs giddily.

“Does this mean I don’t get to double-bunk with Brendon?” Jon says loud enough for them to hear, fake-disappointment almost overwhelmed by his very real laughter. Spencer pulls back enough to glare over Brendon’s shoulder.

“I can fucking end you, Walker,” he threatens. Jon just laughs at him and Spencer glares a moment longer before nuzzling back against Brendon’s mouth, pressing more kisses there.

“This is really fucking gross, guys,” Ryan complains.


End file.
